The Rangoon jail riot of 1930 and the

prison administration of British

Burma
James Warren

The paper opens with a description of a riot that occurred in the

Rangoon Central Jail in June 1930, and then considers the subse-
quent enquiries into its causes and into the conduct of the prison
staff. It is argued that the administration of the jail was marked by
arbitrary corruption and brutality, and that this was due in part to
the preponderance of Indian staff. A new Indian superintendent,
intent on wiping out corrupt practices, is appointed to the jail, and
it is that sharp change in the prison regime that precipitates the
riot. The paper then examines the employment of Indians in the
prison administration of Burma. It is established that Indians domi-
nated the lower echelons of the penal establishment but that this
was not the result of a deliberate policy of ‘divide-and-rule’ on the
part of the colonial authorities. Rather it arose from Burma’s in-
corporation into British India in the mid-1880s, and the British
concern for administrative efficiency and economy. Finally it is
argued that Indian dominance of the prison administration was a
primary cause of prison unrest, and a serious impediment to the
reformatory influences of the penal institution.

In the entire penal history of British Burma, the Rangoon jail riot of 24
June 1930 was undoubtedly one of the most dramatic and significant
incidents. Although it lasted for only about an hour, it was a particu-
larly serious and violent episode, symptomatic of the time. Strangely,
then, it has been rather overlooked by historians of the period. 1 Indeed,
there are no detailed accounts of the prison administration of British
Burma, and the limited references which do exist offer conflictin g views.
Furnivall depicts a penal system characterized by squalor, brutality,
1
In his authoritative A History of Modern Burma (Ithaca, 1958), John F. Cady covers
the riot in a single paragraph, drawing exclusively upon the account presented by
Maurice Collis in his autobiographical Trials In Burma (London, 1945), while it is
totally ignored by Robert H. Taylor, The State in Burma (London, 1987).

South East Asia Research, 10, 1, pp. 5–29

6 South East Asia Research

and bad discipline: ‘the jails were continually being enlarged and con-
tinually overcrowded’; ‘whipping is freely used’; and ‘a prisoner could
have anything he wanted except women; some said he could even have
women’.2 In contrast, Nisbet, in his encyclopaedic Burma under British
Rule, while acknowledging the constant overcrowding, presents a picture
of orderliness and leniency: ‘[s]erious outbreaks in any of the jails are of
comparatively rare occurrence, as the discipline maintaine d is good’;
and ‘[w]hipping was formerly frequently inflicted, but is now had recourse
to only in comparatively rare cases, when exemplary punishment is really
necessary’.3 In attemptin g to resolve such conflicting views, the 1930
Rangoon jail riot is particular ly illuminating. Not only did the riot and its
circumstances reveal fundamental flaws in the colonial prison adminis-
tration but they were also a reflection of growing social and political
tensions in the province. This was a time when the British colonial
administration was coming under increasing pressure: the dust from the
Rangoon race riots of May had barely settled and by the end of 1930 the
province would be plunged into the Hsaya San rebellion.
Significantly, perhaps, 24 June was the day on which the second
volume of the Simon Commission Report was to be published. Distur-
bances were expected in Rangoon, and the military police were on
standby in their barracks, not far from the Rangoon Central Jail. 4 In-
deed, an official telegram sent the following day conjectured that the
prison convicts had heard rumours of a probable disturbance in the
town, and had thus decided to seize the opportunity to break out, in the
belief that the military police would be fully occupied. 5 Unfortunately
for the convicts involved, no such disturbances materializ ed and the
military police were able to respond to the riot quickly and ruthlessly.

The riot
On the afternoon of 24 June there were about 125 members of staff,
2
J. S. Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice (Cambridge, 1948), pp. 137, 173, 268.
3
J. Nisbet, Burma under British Rule – and Before, (London, 1901), volume 1, pp.
236–237.
4
That some form of upheaval was expected is made apparent in official correspond-
ence at the time. See, for example, Government of Burma to the Secretary to the
Government of India, Home Department, 25 August 1930 (India Office Records
[henceforth IOR] L/PJ/6/2005, File 2153/30, p. 2) and Collis, op. cit., pp. 161–162:
Collis was then District Magistrate of Rangoon.
5
Telegram from the Viceroy, Home Department, to the Secretary of State for India,
repeating a telegram from the Government of Burma, 25 June 1930 (IOR, L/PJ/6/
2005, File 3540/30, attached to File 2153/30).
 Rangoon jail riot and prison administration of British Burma 7

almost all of whom were Indian, administering a prison population of

roughly 2,000, the majority Burmese.6 The riot took place in the work-
shop enclosure, a walled section in the west of the jail containing the
jail press, the saw-mill, various workshops, and the round house. 7 Access
to the outside world was through the rear (western) gate, consisting of
two interior gates, the one on the prison side made of iron bars and the
other of wood, above which was a sentry post known as the Rear Guard.
These two gates led to a yard and the outer gate, ‘a massive portal of
wood studded with iron’. 8
That afternoon, there were approximately 1,100 convicts going about
their daily tasks in the workshop enclosure, watched over by a small,
but indetermin ate, number of staff. 9 According to an eye witness account,
roughly 30 convicts were loitering, unnoticed, not far from the first
interior gate. 10 Also present in the workshop enclosure were two motor
lorries belonging to the jail press, waiting to take away the day’s work. 11
While all accounts agree that it was the opening of this gate that her-
alded the start of the riot, there are conflicting opinions as to whether
the gate was opened to let one of the lorries out of the jail or to let
another in. 12 Whatever the true position, it is clear that around 3.00 p.m.,

6
The figure for the number of prison staff is taken from IOR, L/SG/6/303, p. 23. That
the staff was predominantly Indian is confirmed by Collis, op. cit., p. 173. Accord-
ing to Collis, the remaining staff was Eurasian. The figure for the total prison
population, and the fact that it was mainly Burmese, is taken from the Report on the
Prison Administration of Burma for the Year 1930 (Rangoon, 1930), pp. 48–51.
7
The following narrative is based on official correspondence and reports (IOR, L/PJ/
6/2005, File 2153/30); details from the appeal of Lieut. Col. J. C. Bharucha against
the charges made against him in respect of the outbreak at Rangoon Central Jail,
June 1930 (IOR, L/SG/6/303); official and eyewitness accounts reported in the Ran-
goon Gazette Weekly Budget, 30 June 1930, pp. 6–8; the findings of the Rangoon Jail
Riot Trial conducted between August and November 1930, reported in the Rangoon
Gazette Weekly Budget, 1 September 1930 and 17 November 1930; and the account
of District Magistrate Maurice Collis in his autobiographical Trials in Burma, pp.
160–178 based on his first-hand experience of the riot and subsequent inquiry into
it. The Government of Burma never transmitted the report by Collis to the Govern-
ment of India (detailed in IOR, L/PJ/6/2005, File 5268/30), and therefore no copy is
held in London.
8
Collis, op. cit., p. 172.
9
The number of convicts is taken from IOR, L/PJ/6/2005, PJ File 2153/30, p. 1. There
is no figure in the sources for the number of staff in the workshop enclosure at that
time.
10
Account of ‘Eye Witness’, Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget, 30 June 1930, p. 6.
11
Ibid.
12
All the official accounts of the incident – Collis, op. cit., p. 172; Government of
Burma to the Secretary to the Government of Burma, Home Department, 25 August
1930 (IOR, L/PJ/6/2005/, File 2153/30) p. 2, enclosure no. 6, serial no. 13; Secretary,
8 South East Asia Research

as Ram Surup Singh, the warder in charge of the gates of the Rear
Guard, opened the first interior gate, he was attacked by the loitering
convicts mentioned above. 13 Included in their number were two Bur-
mese convicts serving life sentences, Nga Thein Dan and Nga Hla,
who were subsequently identifie d as the ringleaders. 14 These two beat
Ram Surup Singh around the head with iron rods, snatched his keys,
and left him for dead, while the other convicts attacked one of the lorry
drivers, again with iron rods, killing him in the process. With the keys
to all the Rear Guard gates in the convicts’ possession, the attempte d
outbreak was underway.
Led by Nga Thein Dan and Nga Hla, this group moved into the pas-
sage between the two interior gates (locking the first behind them so
that the jail staff could not come to the aid of their comrades in the
Rear Guard)15 and proceeded up the stairs to the guardroom. Faced
with this mob, the sentries surrendered their rifles, retreate d along a
verandah on to the top of the outer wall, and jumped down to the safety
of the street. 16 Meanwhile the convicts, now in full possession of the
Rear Guard and five rifles with at least 35 rounds of ammunition, at-
tempted to make their escape by storming the outer rear gate. Some
accounts note that the convicts drove the two lorries into the yard between
the Rear Guard and the outer gate, to facilitate their breakout. 17 By this
point, however, the alarm had been sounded, and the first wave of mili-
tary police, mounted with lances, had gathered outside the rear gate

Public Service Commission, no. F. 57/31-S, 17 September 1931 (IOR, L/SG/6/303)

p. 10; and the official account in the Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget, 30 June 1930,
p. 8 – state that a lorry was leaving the jail, while the ‘Eye Witness Account’ in the
Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget, 30 June 1930, p. 6 and the evidence of Ram Surup
Singh presented at the Jail Riot Trial conducted between August and November 1930,
and reported in the Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget, 17 November 1930, p. 6 indi-
cate that a lorry was entering.
13
Accounts of the riot differ as to the exact timing of the lorry leaving the jail. Collis
(p. 172) places it at 3.00 p.m., while the official account in the Rangoon Gazette
Weekly Budget (30 June 1930, p. 8) places it at about 3.15; and Government of Burma
to the Secretary to the Government of India, Home Department, 25 August 1930
(IOR, L/PJ/6/2005, File 2153/30) p. 2, along with enclosure no. 6, serial no. 13,
Public Service Commission, no. F. 57/31-S, 17 September 1931 (IOR, L/SG/6/303)
p. 10, places it at 2.45 p.m.
14
Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget, 17 November 1930, p. 6.
15
Ibid.
16
Government of Burma to the Secretary to the Government of India, Home Depart-
ment, 25 August 1930, p. 2; Collis, op. cit., p. 173.
17
Lt. Col. P. K. Tarapore to Major J. C. Bharucha, I.M.S, 3 December 1930, enclosing
Secretary to the Government of Burma to the Secretary to the Government of India,
13 August 1930 (IOR, L/SG/6/303) p. 104; and Collis, op. cit., p. 174.
 Rangoon jail riot and prison administration of British Burma 9

with some of the jail warders. Fortunately for the citizens of Rangoon,
the rear gate had been secured from the outside, and the convicts were
unable to break through. Both sides then proceeded to open fire, with
some of the warders positioning themselves in trees to give themselves
better sight of the convicts.18 More military police, armed with rifles,
shortly arrived on foot at the scene, and their intense fire was sufficient
to force the convicts back from the rear gate. Of critical importance is
the fact that the military police, including their officers, were exclu-
sively Indian in composition, 19 for the absence of a European
commanding officer may account for the heavy-handed tactics. It was
the arrival of the military police that marked the beginning of the res-
toration of order within the jail.
While some military police and warders retook the Rear Guard, using
ladders to scale the walls, and others surrounded the prison to prevent
escapes, the original group of convicts retreate d to the workshop en-
closure, where they were joined by approximately 400 other convicts,
most, apparently, serving long sentences. 20 Armed with whatever they
could lay their hands on – ‘dahs, chisels, iron bars and wooden bat-
tens’ 21 – these desperate men made ready for battle, drinking themselves
into a frenzy with methylated spirits from some drums in the enclosure
while ‘[a] proficient in magic was set to paint figures on the chest and
arms of as many as possible to render them invulnerable’.22 The re-
mainder of the convict population present, declining to participate in
the violence, hid themselves about the enclosure, as did the fearful
warders. 23 Meanwhile, the military police and warders who had been at
the rear gate, and had positioned themselves in a turret on the north-
west corner of the prison and along the walls, opened fire on the rioting
convicts. Once more under attack, they took shelter and prepared to
sell their lives dearly.
By now, another group of military police, led by Major Hare, Com-
mander of the Rangoon Military Police, and assisted by Lieutenant
Colonel Flowerdew, the Inspector-General of Prisons, had gathered at
the main gate. Directed by the Indian Superintendent of the jail, Major
18
Deposition of Oojagar Singh, Warder (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 234.
19
Collis, op. cit., pp. 166, 176. See also James F. Guyot, ‘Bureaucratic transformation
in Burma’, in Ralph Braibanti (ed.), Asian Bureaucratic Traditions Emergent from
the British Imperial Tradition (Durham, North Carolina, 1996), p. 379.
20
Official account, Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget, 30 June 1930, p. 8.
21
Detailed account, Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget, 30 June 1930, p. 7.
22
Collis, op. cit., p. 174.
23
Ibid.
10 South East Asia Research

Bharucha, this group made its way through the main part of the prison
to a gate that adjoined the workshop enclosure. From the other side of
the gate came the sounds of a raging battle, and, in a display of much
courage, the European commanders led their group of military police
into the workshop enclosure. Dodging the fire of not only the convicts
but also the military police up on the walls, they broke up into a number
of units and slowly took up positions around the roundhouse. Lieuten-
ant Colonel Flowerdew then attem pted to take control of the situation.
Relying on the fact that he had been superintendent of the jail until
only three weeks previously and, consequently, that he was well known
to, and, supposedly, liked by the convicts,24 Flowerdew, accompanied
by Major Hare, cautiously approached the roundhouse and called upon
those inside to surrender. A shot rang out and Flowerdew collapsed to
the ground with a wound in his left arm. Seeing that the convicts re-
mained uncowed and dangerous, the military police closed in, unleashing
intense fire upon the roundhouse. This had the desired effect, and con-
victs, some of them wounded, began to run from the building to surrender.
Others, however, refused to give up their arms. Fixing their bayonets,
the military police responded by storming the roundhouse, and eventu-
ally succeeded in subduing the remaining convicts. The cease-fire was
ordered at 4.28 p.m..25
The riot had lasted little more than an hour but the devastation was
considerable: ‘[b]rickbats were strewn all over, the wooden fences were
damaged and a state of general disorder prevailed.’ 26 Most importantly,
34 convicts lay dead or dying, mainly from gunshot wounds, and some
60 or more were wounded. The two ringleaders, Nga Thein Dan and
Nga Hla, survived to stand trial: whether they were wounded is not
stated. As regards the jail staff, apart from Lieutenant Colonel Flowerdew
who had been wounded, two were dead (one warder and the lorry driver)
while six warders and a military policem an were injured. This was a
massacre. As District Magistrate Collis, present at the time, put it in
his autobiography: ‘The confined space seemed covered with corpses.
. . . I saw some convicts, still living, who had been shot through the
back, with terrible gaping wounds on their breasts’. 27

24
Ibid., p. 177.
25
Lt. Col. P. K. Tarapore to Major J. C. Bharucha, I.M.S, 3 December 1930, enclosing
Secretary to the Government of Burma to the Secretary to the Government of India,
13 August 1930 (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 105.
26
Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget, 30 June 1930, p. 6.
27
Collis, op. cit., p. 168.
 Rangoon jail riot and prison administration of British Burma 11

This bloodshed has to be understood in the context of events in Ran-

goon just prior to the jail riot. In May 1930, race riots in the capital had
seen five hundred Indians killed at the hands of Burmese, and it is
difficult to see how this could not have affected the behaviour of the
Indian military police. 28 Faced with the rioting prisoners, perhaps they
were driven by a desire for revenge for the May bloodshed: or perhaps
they feared being overrun by the prisoners, and suffering further In-
dian casualties. In any event, they acted with devastating effect. One
source described their methods as ‘those to be used against a rebel
stronghold in the jungle rather than against convicts armed with three
muskets and a few rounds of buckshot cooped up in a narrow space’. 29
In this scene of carnage, the military police and jail staff busied them-
selves with clearing away the bodies and escorting the prisoners back
to the cells. The riot was over: but it had raised questions that needed
answering.

The aftermath: the enquiry

That the riot disturbed the colonial state is without doubt, coming as it
did so soon after an earthquake at Pegu, taken by the Burmese popu-
lation as an omen of impending upheaval, 30 and the Rangoon race riots
of May 1930. Two days after the jail riot, on 26 June, the Governor-in-
Council ordered the District Magistrate of Rangoon, M. S. Collis, to
conduct an immediate enquiry into the origins of the riot and the means
taken to suppress it. Further highlighting how seriously the incident
was taken, a question was later asked in the House of Commons, as to
the steps being taken to prevent a similar occurrence in the future. 31 It
is perhaps surprising that the enquiry in Rangoon was not entrusted to
a member of the Prison Departm ent: indeed the appointment of the
District Magistrate hints that the colonial authorities suspected that all
was not well within the prison administration. In this context it should
be noted that within two days of the incident, Major Bharucha was
transferred from his position as Superintendent of Rangoon Central
Jail to the same position at Insein Jail, upon the orders of the District

28
The figure for Indian deaths is taken from Collis, op. cit., p. 157.
29
IOR, L/SG/6/303, p. 8.
30
Collis, op. cit., p. 139.
31
Parliamentary Notice, Session 1929–30, House of Commons, Question no.43 by Colo-
nel Wedgewood, for 16 July 1930 (IOR, L/PJ/6/2005).
12 South East Asia Research

Magistrate. 32 Furthermore, Major Bharucha was excluded from the

enquiry, and received no support or assistance from the then Inspector-
General of Prisons, Lieutenant Colonel Flowerdew. 33 While the
authorities may have been suspicious of Major Bharucha, simply because
he was an Indian, this all suggests an attem pt to find a scapegoat for
the riot.
District Magistrate Collis started his enquiry on 27 June and submit-
ted his report on 23 July, having interview ed some 50 witnesses.34 Crucial
to his conclusions was a conversation he had had with a Burmese woman,
a non-official visitor of the Rangoon Central Jail, on the afternoon of
26 June, in which she stated that the primary objective of the convicts
was to kill the Superintendent of the prison, Major Bharucha. 35 Collis
surreptitiously follow ed up this lead by interviewing wounded con-
victs at the main hospital in Rangoon. When Collis reassured one of
these convicts that he ‘was not conducting a judicial inquiry, that he
was not on oath, and that his name would not be made public’, the man
revealed that ‘he had heard that the object of some of the convicts had
been to kill Major Bharucha’. 36 He went on: ‘Ma-kan-naing-bu – we
couldn’t bear it.’37 This view as to the cause and purpose of the riot was
the one Collis presented in his report: ‘the primary object of the riot
was to kill the Superintendent of the jail, Major J. C. Bharucha, I.M.S.,
and certain subordinates.’ 38 It seems that Collis substantiated this con-
clusion with the mistaken belief that the convicts, once in control of

32
The Public Service Commission’s Report that supported then Lieutenant Colonel
Bharucha’s appeal against the enquiry of Colonel P. L. O’Neill, Inspector-General
of Civil Hospitals, Burma, in 1932, stated that: ‘Mr Collis being apprehensive that
Major Bharucha would use his influence to prevent him from getting a free state-
ment from the staff and convicts arranged that he should be relieved of his duties and
transferred to Insein.’ (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 295.
33
In a letter to Lieutenant Colonel P. K. Tarapore, the Inspector-General of Prisons,
Burma, before and after Lieutenant Colonel Flowerdew’s brief and temporary ap-
pointment, Major Bharucha stated that, ‘the District Magistrate [Collis] held the
Enquiry entirely behind my back; I was never asked to attend the Enquiry, nor was I
present at the Enquiry. I do not know what evidence was taken, nor do I know the
findings of the Enquiry.’ (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 114. With regard to the conduct of
Lieutenant Colonel Flowerdew, Major Bharucha went on to state: ‘At no time did he
even so much as ask me about the outbreak, either as to the cause of it, of what steps
I had taken prior to the outbreak, or as to what steps I took to quell it.’ (pp. 117–118).
34
Enclosure no. 63, Public Service Commission’s Report (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 295.
35
Collis, op. cit., p. 170.
36
Ibid., p. 171.
37
Ibid.
38
Government of Burma to the Secretary to the Government of India, Home Depart-
ment, 25 August 1930 (IOR, L/PJ/6/2005, File 2153/30), p. 3.
 Rangoon jail riot and prison administration of British Burma 13

the Rear Guard of the jail and in possession of the keys required to
unlock the gates, had not attempte d to escape. 39 Also contained within
the Collis Report were suggestions that Major Bharucha had shown
cowardice in his attem pts to quell the rebellion.40 Indeed, in his Trials
in Burma, Collis indicates that the Superintendent knew the purpose of
the riot and took action to keep out of harm’s way: ‘The superintendent
. . . since he was a prudent man and guessed the intentions of his charges,
declined to expose himself to their animosity. The best course was to
let the police reduce them, while he station ed himself in the Main
Guard.’41 In laying the blame squarely on Major Bharucha, the District
Magistrate was inadvertently opening a can of worms.
Why, then, did the inmates of Rangoon Central Jail wish to murder
their Superintendent? Of vital importance to Collis is the fact that Ma-
jor Bharucha was an Indian, for he sees the jail riot as just another
manifestation of the racial tensions that had exploded on the streets
of Rangoon the previous month. Indeed he concludes that ‘it was
deeply symptomatic of the disturbed condition of the country’. 42 How-
ever Collis argues that it was not simply that the Superintendent was
an Indian but also that he had chosen this ‘extrem ely inopportune
moment to tighten discipline [in the prison] and punish breakers of it
with severity’. 43 Here it is of crucial importance to point out that Major
Bharucha had been Superintendent of the Rangoon Central Jail for
only 22 days before the riot took place. His appointment had come
about because the Inspector-General of Prisons, P. K. Tarapore, had
been given temporary leave, and the then Superintendent of the jail in
Rangoon, Lieutenant Colonel Flowerdew, had assumed the position
of Inspector-General. According to Collis, it was this sudden change
of prison regime, for the worse as far as the convicts and, as will
become clear, some of the staff were concerned, that precipitated the
riot.
While he acknowledges in his report that ‘discipline in the Rangoon
Jail had become rather lax’,44 Collis builds up a severely critical picture
of Major Bharucha and his methods of prison administration, going so
39
Collis, op. cit., pp. 171, 174.
40
Lt. Col. P. K. Tarapore to Major J. C. Bharucha, I.M.S, 3 December 1930, enclosing
Secretary to the Government of Burma to the Secretary to the Government of India,
13 August 1930 (IOR, L/SG/6/303) p. 107.
41
Collis, op. cit., p. 174.
42
Ibid., p. 178. Collis also alludes to this earlier in his autobiography (p. 160).
43
Ibid., p. 160.
44
IOR, L/PJ/6/2005, File 2153/30, p. 3.
14 South East Asia Research

far as to say that ‘he [Major Bharucha] was both a bully and a coward’ 45
and that ‘his methods were tactless, if not harsh, and likely to arouse
great animosity among Burman convicts’. 46 Exactly what truth is there
in these assertions?
Part of the problem with the District Magistrate’s interpretation of
events is that, not being an employee of the Jails Department, he had
only a cursory understanding of the situation in Burma’s prisons and
the administration of them. What to his mind might be considered ex-
treme examples of brutality and harshness may have been, in fact, normal
practice. This point is best illustrated by Collis’s attitude towards, and
understanding of, the practice by which Burmese convicts would shiko
their Indian warders. According to Collis, Major Bharucha forced in-
mates to shiko Indian warders, a practice that the colonial government
had ordered to be discontinued, presumably on the grounds that it was
humiliating, and by doing so, Bharucha fomented discontent. 47 In real-
ity, this practice was common in the jails of Burma, and it appears that
convicts adopted the shiko position before prison officers as a matter
of course. 48 It should be added that Collis recomm ended that Major
Bharucha be removed from service in Burma, as he would be murdered
if he remained in the province.49
While the District Magistrate’s conclusions that the riot was precipi-
tated by the sudden change of regime in the jail, and that it reflecte d
growing Burmese–Indian communal tensions have some merit, his ac-
cusations against Major Bharucha appear to be ill-founded. The account
of the riot outlined above clea rly indicates that the convicts were

45
Minute paper of the Services and General Department, (IOR, L/SG/6/303, p. 1).
46
IOR, L/PJ/6/2005, File 2153/30, p. 3.
47
Government of Burma to the Government of India, 13 August 1930, quoted in Ap-
peal to His Majesty’s Secretary of State for India in Council By Lieut. Col. J. C.
Bharucha, I.M.S., Superintendent of Central Jail Insein, 21 September 1932, p. 4
(IOR, L/SG/6/303).
48
In his written statement for his appeal, Major Bharucha stated: ‘When I took over
charge of the Insein Jail, I noticed that prisoners automatically place themselves in
the position of Shikoe whenever in the presence of a Jailor or Superior Officer, as a
matter of customary practice.’ Enclosure serial No. 11, Written Statement of Major
Bharucha (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 140. This view was substantiated by the Deputy
Superintendent of the Rangoon Central Jail, Noor Mohamed: ‘The normal position
of prisoners brought up for punishment in all Gaols in which I have worked is that of
“Shiko” before the presiding officer. When I saw the “Shiko”, it is not the religious
“Shiko”. It is simply a mark of respect. They do it as a normal thing, without being
told to do it.’ Deposition of Nur Mohamed, Deputy Superintendent (IOR, L/SG/6/
303, enclosure no.35), p. 198.
49
Minute paper of the Services and General Department (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 1.
 Rangoon jail riot and prison administration of British Burma 15

attempting to break out of the prison: and the view that their objective
was to murder the superintendent is further called into question by the
fact that he was not present at that time, as the inmates were probably
aware. 50 Indeed, had they so desired, the prisoners would have had
much better chances of killing Major Bharucha during his routine in-
spections of the jail. Undoubtedly, Collis’s perception of events was
coloured by his pro-Burmese sympathies, apparent to all those who
read his autobiographical Trials in Burma, and by his faith in the civi-
lizing mission of the colonial state, which caused him to lay the blame
on an individual rather than on a corrupt and brutal penal system. Not
surprisingly, the Collis report unleashed further enquiries and an ap-
peal, as Major Bharucha fought to clear his name. From these, there
emerges a clearer picture of the causes of the Rangoon Jail Riot and of
the true nature of the prison administration in Burma.

‘Disciplin e and punish’ in the Rangoon Central Jail

At this point it would be useful to consider the career of Major Bharucha
and his experience of prison administration. After extended service in
the Indian military and in the jails departm ent in India, during which
he appears to have established a good reputation,51 Major Bharucha
arrived in Burma on 5 August 1929. He was first posted to Insein Jail
as Superintendent. 52 He remained at Insein until posted to the Rangoon
Central Jail on 2 June 1930, for the reasons outlined above. During his
time at Insein, Major Bharucha’s work appears to have been highly
successful, and recognized as such by the prison authorities. In his
report on Insein Jail, the Inspector-General noted that: ‘The behaviour
of prisoners has undergone considerable change for the better and much
credit is due to Major J. C. Bharucha, I.M.S., the Superintendent, for
introducing several important changes in the administration of the Jail.’ 53
50
Major Bharucha to the Inspector General of Prisons, Burma, 14 December 1930
(IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 113.
51
In his appeal, Major Bharucha stated that: ‘As to my Jail service, I am happy to say
that it has been the subject of approval wherever I have served. The Madras Govern-
ment has referred to me as an excellent Jail Officer.’ Major Bharucha to His Excellency
the Viceroy and Governor-General of India in Council, 11 June 1931 (IOR, L/SG/6/
303), p. 3.
52
Major Bharucha to the Inspector General of Prisons, Burma, 14 December 1930
(IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 110.
53
Extract from the Inspector-General’s Inspection Note on 6 and 7 May 1930, quoted
in Major Bharucha to the Inspector General of Prisons, Burma, 14 December 1930
(IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 25.
16 South East Asia Research

He was also credited with reducing the death rate within the prison and
increasing its income, by making improvements in the manufacture
department. 54 It would seem, therefore, that Major Bharucha was an
efficient and disciplined prison administrator, a judgement reinforced
by the fact that he had had only a relatively brief period in which to
implement the improvements in Insein Jail. Furthermore, despite the
harsh attacks on his performance in Rangoon, he went on to enjoy a
successful career in the Burma Jails Department (he rose to the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel) without any further damning incidents. 55 How are
we to reconcile these facts with the conclusions drawn by District
Magistrate Collis? When it is remembered that Major Bharucha had
been in Burma for less than a year at the time of the riot and, more
importantly, that he spoke no Burmese, it is apparent that he had little
knowledge or understanding of indigenous ways. Perhaps this lack of
experience in Burmese conditions led him to take inappropriate actions
that caused unease not only within the inmate population but for the
jail staff as well. However, the picture becomes even clearer when it is
realized that Major Bharucha was posted to the Rangoon Central Jail
with the express purpose, acknowledged and supported by the relevant
authorities, of improving the discipline of the prison.56
As noted above, Collis recognized that discipline within the jail had
become lax. 57 But he certainly did not realize the scale of the corrup-
tion and ill-discipline under Lieutenant Colonel Flowerdew. One of

54
Enclosure serial No.2 in Major Bharucha to His Excellency the Viceroy and Gover-
nor-General of India in Council, 11 June 1931 (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 3; extract from
the Report of the Prison Administration of Burma for 1931, quoted in Major Bhraucha,
to the Inspector General of Prisons, Burma, 14 December 1930 (IOR, L/SG/6/303),
p. 26; and enclosure serial No.16, Confidential Report of Major J. C. Bharucha for
the year 1929/30 (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 152.
55
Minute paper of the Services and General Department (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 4.
56
This is acknowledged in several pieces of correspondence. See, in particular: Gov-
ernment of Burma to the Secretary to the Government of India, Home Department,
25 August 1930 (IOR, L/PJ/6/2005, File 2153/30), p.3; and enclosure serial No. 2,
Major Bharucha to His Excellency the Viceroy and Governor-General of India in
Council, 11 June 1931 (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 6.
57
An official correspondence, dated shortly after the riot, stated that: ‘It seems estab-
lished that discipline in the Rangoon Central Jail had become rather slack and Major
Bharucha [had] set himself to tighten it up. It is also understood that he took this
course of action with [the] full approval of Lieut. Col. P. K. Tarapore, the Inspector-
General of Prisons, Burma (now on leave). The Governor in Council has no doubt
that Major Bharucha was justified in attempting to improve the discipline of the
Jail.’ Enclosure serial No. 4, Lt. Col. P. K. Tarapore to Major J. C. Bharucha, I.M.S.,
3 December 1930, enclosing Secretary to the Government of Burma to the Secretary
to the Government of India, 13 August 1930 (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 106.
 Rangoon jail riot and prison administration of British Burma 17

the inmates at the time of the riot described the situation as follows:
‘Before he [Major Bharucha] came, prisoners were allowed to do as
they liked by Jailors. Jailors used to get money for the prisoners, supply
them with extra clothes, food, tinned provisions, Pan-Sopari, sugar,
shoes, cigars, etc., and get no work out of them.’58
While this was widespread throughout prisons in the province, 59 it was
just the problem Major Bharucha had been sent to rectify. Examples of
misconduct among the prison population and the jail staff did not stop
there, and it appears that the new superintendent made many enemies in
his efforts to suppress them. Upon his arrival, Major Bharucha noted
several irregularities within the jail. Thus the annual audit of the prison’s
resources revealed a shortage of paddy: and while it is difficult to ascer-
tain exactly where the paddy had gone, U Nu’s account of prison life in his
novel Man, the Wolf of Man would suggest that the jail staff had been
selling it to the inmates. 60 Similarly, there was a shortage of timber, which
the Inspector-General, Lieutenant Colonel Tarapore, attribute d to the
slackness of the staff. 61 It was also discovered that ‘a large amount of
contraband money and comforts’, including more than 1,500 cheroots,
had been smuggled into the jail. 62 Smoking was, of course, officially
prohibited, although in reality the authoritie s turned a blind eye. 63 Never-
theless, Major Bharucha clamped down on the practice, sending one
convict warder who worked in the hospital and was caught in possession
of tobacco and other illicit luxuries, to work in the jail press,64 a punishment

58
Enclosure serial No. 19, Messrs. Cowajee, Anklesaria and Jeejeebhay to Col. P. L.
O’Neill, C.I.E, I.M.S., 26 January 1931, enclosing statement made by Kartar Singh
to the Inspector-General of Prisons on his release (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 156.
59
This is verified by U Nu’s novel, Man, the Wolf of Man, which concerned the unjust
imprisonment of a young Burmese man, and which he wrote while serving time in
Insein Jail in the early 1940s. It was subsequently serialized in The Guardian (Ran-
goon), 1 (8), June 1954, through to 2 (3), January 1955.
60
Ibid., 1 (12), October 1954, pp. 10–11.
61
Enclosure serial No. 54, Deposition of Lt. Col. P. K. Tarapore, I.M.S., Inspector-
General of Prisons, Burma (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 241.
62
Enclosure serial No. 59, Further questions put to Major Bharucha by his Counsel
and its answers (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 263.
63
U Nu, Man, the Wolf of Man, as published in The Guardian, 2, (1) November 1954,
p. 13. It is interesting to note that in the early 1920s the prison administration had
experimented with rewards of tobacco for good conduct. While this was seen as a
success in improving the behaviour of the prison population, it was discontinued in
1926. Report on the Prison Administration of Burma for the Year 1923 (pp. 5–6),
1925 (p. 4), and 1926 (p. 7).
64
Enclosure serial No. 19, Messrs. Cowajee, Anklesaria and Jeejeebhay to Col. P. L.
O’Neill, C.I.E, I.M.S., 26 January 1931, enclosing statement made by Kartar Singh
to the Inspector-General of Prisons on his release (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p. 156.
18 South East Asia Research

more severe than it sounds, since work in the press was much more
arduous than work in the hospital. Indeed, work detail in the hospital
seems to have been a light option, and Major Bharucha, upon finding
that 80 convicts had been attending to only a few patients, reduced the
staff considerably. 65 The Superintendent further annoyed the Assistant
Surgeon by curtailin g the latter ’s employment of prisoners in his quar-
ters. 66 What emerges is a picture of jail staff exploiting their positions
for their own benefit, while inmates paid for illicit luxuries and light
work duties. Into these circum stances was thrown an efficient discipli-
narian, intent on wiping out corrupt practice s. It made for an explosive
situation.
Also contained in the Collis report, and later investigated by Colo-
nel O’Neill, the Inspector-General of Civil Hospitals, Burma, in his
departmental enquiry, are allegations that Major Bharucha imposed
illegal punishments on miscreant convicts. These consist of unjustly
imposing terms of solitary confinement and causing prisoners to be
handcuffed in an illeg al manner, with their arms higher than their
shoulders. 67 He was cleared of both these charges: but this does not
mean that such punishments were not carried out. Following custom-
ary administrative procedures, a large number of prisoners would be
brought before the Superintendent at one time on charges of miscon-
duct. After investigating each case, a process that does not appear to
have taken long, the Superintendent would record the prescribed pun-
ishment. This would then be carried out by the Punishment Jailer, away
from the presence of the superintendent. 68 Obviously, this system was
open to abuse on the part of the Punishment Jailor, for the only checks
on his actions came from the other jail staff and the prisoners, all of
whom could be bought off or intim idated into silence. In the case of
the Rangoon Central Jail, the Punishment Jailer was a Mr Sutherland,
who seems to have been a rather cruel individual. He had previously
served in Moulmein Jail where, in 1928, he had been found guilty of
inciting the prisoners to riot by giving them false information with
65
Major Bharucha to the Inspector General of Prisons, Burma, 14 December 1930
(IOR, L/SG/6/303), pp. 111–112.
66
Ibid.
67
These charges, along with the charges of showing a lack of initiative, leadership,
and courage during the jail riot, and of compelling Burmese prisoners to shiko Indian
warders, are detailed in several documents. See, for example, Minute Paper of the
Services and General Department, p. 1; and enclosure No. 2, serial No. 4, from the
Government of Burma, 29 January 1931, p. 5: both in IOR, L/SG/6/303.
68
Enclosure serial No.11, Written statement of Major Bharucha (IOR, L/SG/6/303), p.
142.
 Rangoon jail riot and prison administration of British Burma 19

regard to rations. 69 Furthermore, some time after Major Bharucha’s

arrival at the Rangoon prison, Sutherland was removed from his po-
sition as Punishment Jailor and a Mr Wittenbak er took his place. When
giving evidence at Bharucha’s appeal, the Deputy Superintendent,
Noor Mohamed, indicate d that Sutherland’s removal was due to the
superintendent’s lack of satisfaction with his work, although it is not
evident whether this was because he was aware of the Punishment
Jailor’s over-zealousness.70 In addition, evidence given by Wittenba ker
on the same occasion contradicts that given by Sutherland, in that
Witten baker suggested that the illeg al handcuffing of convicts was
carried out by the Punishment Jailor without the superintendent’s
knowledge. 71 It is clear how a member of the jail staff might exploit
his position to brutalize the inmate population.
With regard to his use of punishment, Major Bharucha maintain ed
that he ordered less numerous and less severe punishments than the
previous superintendent, and preferred to give out warnings.72 Given
his disciplinarian nature, this seems a little hard to accept, and indeed
the evidence of a convict serving life was that: ‘he gave the same pun-
ishments for small as for large offences’. 73 Whatever the truth, an Indian
Superintendent handing out punishment, or merely giving warnings to
Burmese convicts must surely have fanned the flames of racial antago-
nism.
It is clear, therefore, that the administration of the Rangoon Central
Jail was marked by arbitrary corruption and brutality, and that ill-dis-
cipline was rife not only among the inmate population but also, more
significantly, among the jail staff. Against a backdrop of increasing
racial tensions in Rangoon, a new Superintendent heavy-handedly sets
out to rectify this state of affairs, in the process fuelling the discontent

69
Enclosure serial No. 41, Deposition of Mr. J. A. Sutherland, Assistant Jailor, p. 209;
and enclosure serial No. 54, Deposition of Lt. Col. P. K. Tarapore, I.M.S., Inspector-
General of Prisons, Burma, p. 244: both in IOR, L/SG/6/303.
70
Enclosure serial No. 35, Deposition of Noor Mohamed, Deputy Superintendent, p.
198 (IOR, L/SG/6/303).
71
Enclosure serial No. 3, Written address of Counsel, on the Case, pp. 56–57; enclosure
serial No. 41, Deposition of Mr. J. A. Sutherland, Assistant Jailor, p. 209; and enclo-
sure serial No.42, Deposition of Mr. L. Wittenbaker, p. 213 (IOR, L/SG/6/303).
72
Enclosure serial No. 5, Major J. C. Bharucha to the Inspector-General of Prisons,
Burma, 14 December 1930, p. 111; and enclosure serial No. 59, Further questions
put to Major Bharucha by his Counsel and its answers, in which he states: ‘I have not
flogged a single man in Burma.’, p. 263 (IOR, L/SG/6/303).
73
Enclosure serial No. 38, Deposition of Life Prisoner, Tan Maung, p. 204 (IOR, L/
SG/6/303).
20 South East Asia Research

of the prisoners and alienatin g members of the staff. Something had to

give. Here the evidence of an inmate, Kartar Singh, is particularly re-
vealing. According to this convict, some of the staff, including the Chief
Jailor, Ganga Singh, and Sutherland, sought to remove the unwelcome
Major Bhraucha by instigating a riot. 74 Indeed Major Bharucha argued
that he had reason to believe that certain members of his staff had prior
knowledge of the outbreak. 75 Whatever the truth, it is clear that, with
Rangoon on a knife-edge of communal violence, and with a jail staff
composed almost exclusively of Indians managing a prison population
that was predominantly Burmese, it was not the time for an Indian
superintendent to be rocking the boat.
The jail staff made every effort to discredit Major Bharucha. With
his transfer from the prison, the way was open for his enemies to con-
coct their own version of events for District Magistrate Collis. Shortly
after the riot, the Chief Jailor, Ganga Singh, called all the warder staff
who had been at the Rear Gate to account for the firing of ammunition
during the riot. Ganga Singh and the Deputy Superintendent, Noor
Mohamed, both attempted to gain the credit for giving the order to
open fire at the Rear Gate, thus making out that the Superintendent had
been elsewhere. 76 But the warders argued that it had been Major Bharucha
who had given the order, to which Ganga Singh responded by intimi-
dating them into silence. 77 Crucially, these warders were not called to
give evidence before the District Magistrate during his enquiry, and
the Chief Jailor emerged from the proceedings with commendations
for bravery, while the Superintendent was said to have displayed coward-
ice and shown a lack of initiativ e. 78 It also seems likely that Lieutena nt
Colonel Flowerdew exploited his temporary position as Inspector-
General of Prisons to cover up evidence of wrong-doing during his

74
Enclosure serial No. 19, Messrs Cowajee, Anklesaria and Jeejeebhay to Col. P. L.
O’Neill, C.I.E, I.M.S., 26 January 1931, enclosing statement made by Kartar Singh
to the Inspector-General of Prisons on his release (IOR, L/SG/6/303), pp. 156–157.
75
Enclosure serial No. 11, Written statement of Major Bharucha, p. 133 (IOR, L/SG/6/
303).
76
Enclosure serial No. 2, Appeal to His Excellency the Viceroy and Governor-General
of India in Council, pp. 94–96, quoting evidence given in enclosure serial No. 33,
Deposition of Mahabir Tewari, Chief Warder, p. 189; enclosure serial No. 49, Depo-
sition of Sumadar Khan, Warder, p. 233; enclosure serial No. 50, Deposition of Oojagar
Singh, Warder, p. 235; and enclosure serial No. 51, Deposition of Jehandad Khan, p.
236 (IOR, L/SG/6/303).
77
Ibid.
78
Enclosure No. 4, letter from the Government of Burma, Judicial Department, 26
June 1931, p. 8 (IOR, L/SG/6/303).
 Rangoon jail riot and prison administration of British Burma 21

own administration of the jail. Six convicts were subsequently tried for
their part in the riot, but only two, Nga Thein Dan and Nga Hla, were
found guilty: they were sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment,
the maximum penalty. 79 As for the aims of the riot, the judge found that
the riot was simply an escape attempt. 80 Despite Major Bharucha’s efforts
to clear his name, there was no further investigation into the causes of
the affair. A scapegoat had been found.

The Indian minority and the prison administration

Clearly there was a strong racial element to the causes and outcome of
the riot. Yet communal tensions were by no means unique to the Ran-
goon Central Jail. Indeed, attacks upon Indian jail staff by convicts
were common throughout the penal establishments of the province.
Among the many assaults, one of the most significant was that upon
the Chief Jailor of Insein Central Jail, an Indian named Sher Baz Khan,
which took place in July 1934. 81 While the Superintendent, accom pan-
ied by his immediate personnel, was conducting his regular Monday
morning inspection, four life-convicts armed with knives seized the
opportunity to attack the Chief Jailor. Although unsuccessful in their
attem pted murder, they did succeed in wounding him and three other
members of the jail staff before the outbreak was suppressed. What is
remarkable about this incident is the audacity and desperation of the
convicts involved. Indeed the attack appears to be nothing more than
an attem pt to murder a hated prison official, for no other member of the
staff was attacked until they intervened. Furthermore, the attackers must
have acted with the knowledge that they could not escape retribution:
yet this was not enough to deter them. All this is indicative of the sim-
mering tension between the keepers and the kept, and one of the chief
causes of that tension was the preponderance of Indians in the prison
administration.
Burma was unique in British India in not recruiting its prison ward-
ers locally. 82 With the exception of a minim um number of European
warders employed to guard the European inmates of the Rangoon Cen-
tral Jail, the entire warder establishment was Indian. Until penal reforms
79
Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget, 17 November 1930, p. 6.
80
Ibid.
81
The following account is drawn from the Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget, 9 July
1934, p. 22.
82
Report on the Prison Administration of Burma for the Year 1925 (Rangoon, 1926),
p. 26.
22 South East Asia Research

were carried out in the 1920s and 1930s, there were no Burmese
warders. 83
How had this state of affairs developed? There were three main rea-
sons, each related to the annexation of Burma into British India in the
mid-1880s. With Burma simply a province of British India, Indians
held an initial advantage over the indigenous population when it came
to seeking employment within the colonial administration. They had a
‘greater knowledge of English, acquaintance with British administra-
tive procedures, and adaptability to the British working style’. 84 For
their part, the British were accustomed to working with Indians and
considered them more reliable. A clear example is provided by the pre-
1887 police force, whose ranks were filled with Indians since the Indian
army officers who commanded them could speak no Burmese. 85 Sig-
nificantly, the force was subsequently divided in two – the civil police,
which was predominantly Burmese, and the military police, which was
exclusively Indian. Of even greater importance, the ranks of the prison
warder establishment were at first filled with Indians discharged from
the police. 86 Thus Indians established a virtual monopoly over entry
into the prison administration from the early years of British rule.
British attitudes were instrumental in cementing this Indian predomi-
nance. In the early days of the prison administration it was no doubt
considered unwise to use Burmese warders to guard Burmese convicts,
for fear of collusion between the keepers and the kept. Related with
these considerations were the racist opinions of British officials. This
consisted of a belief that the Burmese lacked discipline and a sense of

83
Although the sources offer no figures for the precise racial composition of the warder
establishment in Burma, the absence of Burmese up to the late 1920s and preponder-
ance of Indians is explicit. For example, the evidence of various officials consulted
by the Indian Jails Committee during their tour of Burma in 1920: ‘I learn that, so
far, Burmans have not been employed in jail service as warders’; ‘The warders in
Burma are all Indians, who come from Sultanpur and Fyzabad Districts in the United
Provinces . . . Burmans are not employed as warders’; ‘The paid warders in this
province are all Indians’; ‘The idea of recruiting Burmans as jail warders has not
been applied in any jail up to the present’; and ‘I do not remember ever having seen
a Burman paid warder’: Report of the Indian Jails Committee, 1919–20, volume III,
Minutes of evidence taken in Burma, Bengal, and Assam (Calcutta, 1922), pp. 497,
504, 580, 621, 637.
84
James F. Guyot, ‘Bureaucratic transformation in Burma’, in Ralph Braibanti (ed.),
Asian Bureaucratic Systems Emergent from the British Imperial Tradition (Durham,
North Carolina, 1996), p. 379.
85
Ibid.
86
This is highlighted in the Report on the Prison Administration of Burma for the Year
1867, p. xxxi.
 Rangoon jail riot and prison administration of British Burma 23

responsibility, and were therefore unsuitable for penal employment. 87

Indeed, as one observer put it: ‘they [the Burmese] are temperamen-
tally unfitted for it.’88
The second, and determ ining factor, was the pay of prison warders.
This was unfavourable in comparison to that offered by other depart-
ments, such as the police and excise, and was widely regarded as
inadequate for securing Burmese recruits, or capable personnel for that
matter. 89 As Major Knapp, the Inspector-General for Prisons, summed
up in 1925: ‘A Burman will not serve on the initial salary we offer him,
for the simple reason that he cannot live on it’.90 With their lower standard
of living, however, Indians were prepared to take up penal employment.
Stemm ing from the low rates of pay for prison employees, Burmese
attitude s to prison employment were also decisive in building the In-
dian monopoly of the warder establishment. Quite simply, the long
hours demanded of a prison warder, approximately twelve hours per
day, 91 combined with the poor wage, made the position highly unat-
tractive , and there was no reason for Burmese to take such work while
they could be guaranteed a livelihood from the land. 92 More impor-
tantly, it appears that the Burmese public took very little interest in the
penal establishment, and did not consider it a suitable place to pursue a
career. 93 Perhaps the prison was viewed as an instrument of state re-
pression, and it was considered unsavoury to assert control over one’s
own kind through that institution.

87
Report of the Indian Jails Committee, 1919–20, volume III, p. 47. One of the wit-
nesses before the committee stated that: ‘The Burman does not like to take any
responsibility unless he is in a position to command the respect of his neighbours’,
while another, when questioned as to whether Burmese should be employed as warders,
expressed the opinion that: ‘He has to go through another generation of discipline.’,
pp. 446, 469.
88
Ibid., p. 504.
89
Ibid., pp. 443, 504. When the Indian Jails Committee conducted its enquiries in 1920,
the salary of the standard warder was 14 rupees a month. One of the witnesses esti-
mated that it was impossible to secure the services of Burmese for anything less than
20 rupees a month (pp. 592, 483).
90
Report on the Prison Administration of Burma for the Year 1925, p. 26.
91
Ibid. Giving evidence to the Indian Jails Committee, the superintendent of Bassein
Central Jail stated that: ‘The day staff come on duty from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. with only
2 hours for meals. The night staff do 6 hours by night and 2 hours by day, viz., 8
hours.’ Report of the Indian Jails Committee, volume III, p. 587.
92
Report on the Prison Administration of Burma for the Year 1870, p. 11.
93
This is based on the opinions of witnesses interviewed by the Indian Jails Commit-
tee: for example, ‘at present the Jail Department is not looked on as furnishing a
desirable career’; and it ‘ranks very low in general estimation as a profession’. Re-
port of the Indian Jails Committee, 1919–20, volume III, pp. 471, 576.
24 South East Asia Research

Given the essential role and importance of warders – they were, after
all, the members of the prison staff who had the most contact with the
inmate population – the implication s for racial tension between Indian
warders and Burmese convicts is obvious. To secure a fuller picture of
the problem it is worth examining who the Indian warders were and
why they sought employment in the prisons. The class of Indian
employed as warders was held in low esteem not only by British offi-
cials but also by the indigenous population. A large proportion of them
came from the United Provinces, in particular the districts of Sultanpore
and Fyzabad, and government officers generally considered them to be
untrustworthy schemers and a poor class of men. 94 As for the opinion
of the Burmese convict, Major Knapp, the Inspector-General of Pris-
ons in the early 1920s, remarked that: ‘a Burman, thief though he may
be, does not respect an honest man from the United Provinces whom
we have for our warder. He has no respect for the Indian.’ 95 Major
Knapp also recognized that the most suitable Indian men found em-
ployment within their own country, and that those that came to Burma
were therefore of a lower quality. 96 Denied, or discharged from em-
ployment within the better-paid police force or the army, these men
joined the prison administration as a last resort.97 Not only were these
people poorly qualified for penal employment: they were severely lack-
ing in experience of Burmese conditions.
The life of a prison warder was hard and unpleasant. As noted above,
the pay was low and the hours of duty long. Due to shortages of staff,
opportunities for recreatio n or holidays were few and far between, and
Indian warders rarely had the chance to visit their home and families.
As recognized by the Indian Jails Committee, ‘[h]e is but little less of
a prisoner than the inmates whom it is his duty to guard’. 98 Not surpris-
ingly, there was a high turnover of staff, a mixture of dismissals due to
breaches of conduct and voluntary resignations, which further com-
pounded the problem of securing capable and qualified recruits. 99
Racial tensions were further aggravated by the endemic corruption

94
See, for example, the opinion of the Inspector-General of Police in Report of the
Indian Jails Committee, 1919–20, p. 464. References to the warders coming from
the United Provinces abound in the report, for example, pp. 504, 621, 643.
95
Ibid., p. 536.
96
Ibid., p. 504.
97
Ibid., p. 620.
98
Report of the Indian Jails Committee, 1919–20, volume I, p. 56.
99
There were 149 resignations from a total warder establishment of 1,136 in 1918, an
increase of 60 over the previous year. While the Inspector-General of Prisons noted
 Rangoon jail riot and prison administration of British Burma 25

of the Indian warders.100 Given the low rates of pay, it was natural that
they exploited their positions for financial gain at the expense of in-
mates. While this may have provided illicit luxuries, such as tobacco
and opium, welcom ed by the convicts, it was also a source of misery,
not just for the convicts but for their families too. As far back as 1870,
the Superintendent of Bassein Central Jail observed that his warders’
‘only activity consisted in devising schemes for extorting money from
the unfortunate families of the prisoners’.101 Based on his experience
of prison, U Nu gives a fictitious example of the Indian warder’s venality:
One paid warder would not scruple to score off another paid warder at the same
game. If convict Mg Phyu received forbidden articles smuggled in by one paid
warder, another paid warder might catch Maung Phyu with the goods. No amount
of pleading, salaamin g or kowtowing would move his heart. Of course a few
coins might. Otherwise up went the report. If Maung Phyu guessed that the two
paid warders were in league with each other and, yielding to his indignation at
such bare-faced double-crossing, retaliated on the paid warders, Maung Phyu
became a ‘bad hat’.102
Indian warders thus controlled the underground economy of the pris-
ons. If a convict had money, he might obtain desirable items or bribe a
warder to give him a lighter work duty: but he might just as easily find
himself having to pay to avoid a punishment. Even when imprisoned,
the Burmese could not escape the fact that he had been subjugated not
only by the British but also by the Indians.
At the level of the jailers, there was greater racial diversity. Before
the Indian Jails Committee in 1920, the Superintendent of Moulmein
Jail remarked that: ‘Some [jailers] are Burmans, some are Indians and
some are Anglo-Indians or Eurasians’. 103 In response to nationalist

that this was due ‘to a great deal of sickness and deaths among their families at their
homes in India’, the United Provinces having been hit hard by an outbreak of influ-
enza and plague, it clearly indicates the extent of the problem. Report on the Prison
Administration of Burma for the Year 1918, p. 17.
100
This is widely acknowledged in all the sources consulted. See, for example, this
statement by the Indian Jails Committee: ‘In every Province which we visited there
was a general opinion that corruption is common in the warder staff.’ Report of the
Indian Jails Committee, volume I, p. 57.
101
Report on the Prison Administration of Burma for the Year 1870, pp. 21–22.
102
U Nu, Man, the Wolf of Man, as published in The Guardian (Rangoon), 2 (3), Janu-
ary 1955, p. 16.
103
Report of the Indian Jails Committee, volume III, p. 487. This was also recognized
in volume I, p. 56: ‘there was a general opinion that at present the Jail Department is
able to obtain only the leavings of the labour market, the men who have been re-
jected by other departments, such as the police and the Indian army.’
26 South East Asia Research

agitatio n during the early 1920s, the British embarked upon a policy of
Burmanization, encouraging the indigenous majority to take up serv-
ice in the colonial administration. In 1923, there were 55 Burmese jailers
out of a sanctioned strength of 152, but by 1927 the figure had barely
changed – there were now 57 Burmese out of 157. 104 Despite the provi-
sion of training in prison administration, Burmese enthusiasm for such
work was slight, and the Inspector-General of Prisons records that:
‘The number of Burman and Karen candidates volunteering with the
requisite standard of education is disappointingly small’. 105
Indian dominance of the penal administration was further compounded
by the haphazard approach to the superintendence of prisons. In the
Report on the Prison Administration of Burma for the Year 1928, the
Inspector-General of Prisons recorded that: ‘Out of thirty jails (excluding
Camp Jails and Subsidiary Jails) only four are provided with whole-
time Superintendents. The remaining twenty-six are held as collatera l
charges by the Civil Surgeon, or the Senior Medical Officer of the Sub-
division, as the case may be’. 106 With their other duties, it is obvious
that these part-time Superintendents had little time for the administra-
tion of their prisons.107 In their absence, control of the jail would pass
to the Deputy Superintendent, if there was one, or the Chief Jailor.
Furthermore, as the case of Major Bharucha amply demonstrates,
Superintendents, whether full- or part-tim e, had often risen through
the ranks of the colonial administration in India, and thus had little or
no knowledge of the people of Burma, their language and their ways. 108
In November 1925, Alexander Paterson, His Majesty’s Commissioner
for Prisons, visited Burma at the request of the local government, and
neatly summed up the situation:
The superintendence of a jail is a highly technical piece of work, a skilled pro-
fession in itself, and cannot be performed in a few hours by men wholly untrained
for it, who are not selected by reason of their fitness for it, but slip into the part
104
Indian Statutory Commission, Memorandum Submitted by the Government of Burma
to the Indian Statutory Commission (London, 1930), volume, XI, p. 161.
105
Ibid.
106
Report on the Prison Administration of Burma for the Year 1928, p. 31.
107
Lieutenant Colonel Entrican, the Civil Surgeon of Meiktila and Superintendent of
the Juvenile Jail at Meiktila, estimated that he spent no more than one hour in the
morning at his jail, which was small, while Lieutenant Colonel Castor, Superin-
tendent of the larger Moulmein Jail, stated that his inspections took about three to
four hours. Report of the Indian Jails Committee, 1919–20, volume III, pp. 476, 491.
108
Commenting upon the administration of jails before the Indian Jails Committee, R.
Casson, the Sessions Judge of Tenasserim Division, stated that: ‘A long apprentice-
ship in Indian jail administration is essential.’ Ibid., p. 559.
 Rangoon jail riot and prison administration of British Burma 27

by mere accident of their being Civil Surgeon in the area. They sign their names
upon a hurried series of forms, they hear applications from, and administer jus-
tice among, prisoners whose language is usually a closed book to them. They
are compelle d to accept, from the Chief Jailor and his subordinate jailors, not
only their interpre tation of all that a prisoner says, but also their account of all
that happens in the jail itself. 109

Not surprisingly, government officials frequently commented that the

real rulers of the prisons were the Chief Jailors. 110
That the day-to-day running of the penal administration of Burma,
lying as it did in the hands of an Indian minority, was a source of racial
friction is unquestionable. Recognizing this, the editor of the Rangoon
Times told the Indian Jails Committee, ‘At present, so far as the jail
service is concerned, the people of Burma are made to appear wholly
inferior to Indians, an attitude that they do not accept and that is pro-
vocative of political ill-feeling.’ 111 It was one of the principal impediments
to the reformatory influences of the penal system, and, given the high
level of crime in Burma, it is not surprising that it was a matter of great
concern to the colonial authorities. 112 By the early 1920s, the prisons in
the province were widely held to be little more than factories for the
production of criminals, and one of the witnesses before the Indian
Jails Committee, a judge at the Chief Court of Lower Burma, summed
up the situation as follows: ‘There is indeed much to fear that the jail
system tends to propagate criminal proclivities and is thus to a great
extent responsible for the increase in crime in Burma.’113 After the find-
ings of the committee were published in 1922, efforts were made to
rectify the situation. Understandably, these concentrated upon attem pts
to encourage Burmese to join the prison administration, although they
met with little success. The initial pay of prison warders was raised
substantially, and Burmese warders were tried in Tharrawaddy and
Mandalay Jails. But as the Inspector-General of Prisons noted:

109
Quoted in the Report on the Prison Administration of Burma for the Year 1928 (Ran-
goon, 1928), p. 32.
110
Paterson commented that the administration of penal institutions in Burma ‘rests in
the hands of the Chief Jailor’. This view is found throughout the Report of the Indian
Jails Committee, 1919–20, volume III, for example pp. 453, 456, and 502.
111
Report of the Indian Jails Committee, 1919–20, volume III, p. 497.
112
In the Resolution on the Report on the Prison Administration of Burma for the Year
1915, p. 1, it was stated that, on paper, Burma was the most criminal province in the
Indian Empire.
113
Report of the Indian Jails Committee, 1919–20, volume III, p. 455.
28 South East Asia Research

The experiment, I regret to say, proved a thorough failure. Burman warders were
found to be totally lacking in a sense of responsibility; fraternis ed with the pris-
oners and proved inefficie nt in every way. Government had to issue orders to
discontinue the entertainment of Burmese warders. 114
Thus the dominance of Indians within the prison administration was
primarily a matter of expediency, resulting from the low rates of pay for
prison staff, m ixed with the reluctance of the Burmese to take up
employment they considered unattractive and the racist attitud es of
British officials. Furthermore, the Indian monopoly of penal employ-
ment hindered the reformatory influences of prison, a situation recognized
by the British administration. Rather than being a source of stability and
control, the Indian dominance was a cause of prison unrest.

A concluding comparison
It might, as a conclusion, be useful to draw some brief comparisons
with the prison administration in French Indochina, specifically Viet-
nam, which is well documented in the work of Peter Zinoman.115 As
was the case in British Burma, the lower ranks of the penal establish-
ment in Vietnam were filled with ethnic minorities who controlled an
inmate population overwhelmingly composed of the dominant ethnic
group, namely the lowland Vietnamese. In contrast to Burma, how-
ever, these were ethnic minorities that were native to Vietnam – highland
ethnic groups such as the Thos, Nungs, and Rhades – as opposed to the
immigrant and ‘alien’ Indians in Burma. Zinoman attribute s this partly
to the fact that ‘excluding Con Dao, all of Indochina’s maximum secu-
rity penitentiaries were situated in regions demographically dominated
by upland ethnic minorities’.116 Of more importance to him, however,
is that: ‘The decision to use minorities as prison guards was consistent
with . . . a general “divide-and-rule-policy on the basis of ethnographic
knowledge”’. 117 He points out that this was a conscious policy adopted

114
Indian Statutory Commission, volume XI, p. 162.
115
This paragraph draws on Peter B. Zinoman, ‘The Colonial Bastille: a Social History
of Imprisonment in Colonial Vietnam, 1862–1940’ (PhD dissertation, Cornell Uni-
versity, 1996), specifically pp. 127–130. The dissertation has been published as The
Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam, 1862–1940 (Berkeley, 2001).
116
Ibid., p. 127.
117
Ibid. Here he is quoting from Oscar Salemink, ‘Mois and maquis: the invention and
appropriation of Vietnam’s Montagnards from Sabatier to the CIA’, in George Stocking
Jr (ed.), Colonial Situations: Essays on the Contextualization of Ethnographic Know-
ledge (Madison, 1991), p. 247.
 Rangoon jail riot and prison administration of British Burma 29

by the French colonial authorities, and was designed to prevent ‘rec-

reatio nal collusion between the keepers and the kept’. 118 While this
was undoubtedly true to some extent, the experience of Burma sug-
gests that the use of ethnic minorities in penal institutions might not be
merely a simple case of ‘divide-and-rule’. The nature of the colonial
economy and the position of the Vietnam ese in it probably played an
important role as well. Like the Indians in Burma, the services of the
highland minorities of Vietnam could, no doubt, be secured at a much
lower price than that of the Vietnam ese. Furtherm ore, while Zinoman
does not detail Vietnam ese attitudes to penal employment, it is reason-
able to assume that the geographical locatio n of the m ajority of
Indochina’s prisons, far from the lowland areas of Vietnamese habitation,
acted as a deterrent to Vietnamese employment. But whatever the differ-
ences in detailed practice , the effect of using ethnic minorities, on that
scale, in penal institutions in British Burma and French Indochina was
to foster an atmosphere of communal violence and to limit reforming
influences. It caused more problems than it prevented.

118
Zinoman, op. cit., p. 128.